My Thoughts Women & Power is a pair of essays by classicist Mary Beard and it is a great example of how history can provide context for the present day. The author does a phenomenal job linking Greek and Roman mythology to present-day attitudes toward women in power. She dissects the tradition of viewing public …
Mary Beard
Winifred Mary Beard is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog “A Don’s Life”, which appears on The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as “Britain’s best-known classicist”.
From 1979 to 1983 she lectured in Classics at King’s College London. She returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a fellow of Newnham College and the only female lecturer in the Classics faculty. Rome in the Late Republic, which she co-wrote with the Cambridge ancient historian Michael Crawford, was published the same year. In 1985 Beard married Robin Sinclair Cormack. She had a daughter in 1985 and a son in 1987. Beard became Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement in 1992.
In 2004, Beard became the Professor of Classics at Cambridge. She is also the Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature for 2008–2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has delivered a series of lectures on “Roman Laughter”.